Lament For The Lonely Souls
by Svetlana Morealt
Summary: Two years after RE6, Chris Redfield and his new team are back to fighting bioterrorism when their next mission spirals downhill at an unexpected turn of events. Old enemies make a surprising comeback for the worst, putting all of humanity in jeopardy. The world has never felt so unsafe. Eventual Valenfield, Shake, and possibly Aeon.
1. Uneasy Beginnings

**A/N: This fic originally started out as a roleplay between myself and Pqfire09, but expanded to the point where we decided we wanted to share it with others.**

**So, this was the result. The romances involved are so far restricted to eventual Valenfield (ChrisxJill), Shake (JakexSherry), and Aeon (AdaxLeon). There are a variety of OCs to fill in certain gaps, but most of them don't play important roles and are there only for story purposes.**

**This first chapter is the original intro I made for the roleplay which in itself is fairly short. Credit to Pqfire09 and his writing will show itself in the next chapter where I'll explain which characters belonged to (or were used by) him for the sake of the story. Special thanks to him ahead of time for being such a great roleplay partner. Hugs and kisses, Gabe~**

* * *

It'd been two overly long years since the events of China. The B.S.A.A. was once again back on it's feet with solid new teams after the horrendous amount of losses during the tragedies that had taken place therein. Soldiers and civilians died by the dozens and a lot of people had yet to get over it. Still in position as Captain of the SOU Alpha team, it was a safe assumption to say that after having lost a second team so soon after the first, Chris Redfield was one of them. It was the reminder of those events that left him more cautious, more careful of his team's movements and clear-headed as opposed to the vengeful personality he'd developed briefly in the past that had been at fault for the loss of one of those units.

Although he nearly dwindled at the edge of depression with a stomach full of guilt, it was the memory of his fallen partner that carried him through the nights with whispers that insisted he stay strong and in the fight. A small part of him stayed with China, just enough to hurt; but not enough to fall into the same low, drunken stupor he had the first time back in Edonia. The events that occurred in the span of those six months and beyond had been enough to shape him, change him, but all for the better. He'd been so ready to turn in the badge and live the rest of his years in retirement; until his young A.T.L. helped him to open his eyes at the cost of his life. The B.S.A.A. still needed him to fight.

That didn't stop it from being any less difficult having had to inform each family personally of any and all events that occurred. It wasn't the first time it happened, but it never got easier losing the people he served with. Not for anyone. He remembered each of their faces; some of them wrecked with sobs, while others held sharp gazes that stared accusingly and it was all with good reason. Chris had let all forms of sensibility disappear into a blinding rage that led many of them to their coffins - not that there were many bodies left to be recovered by that point. He'd made mistakes before, but never anything so severe as he had then. The past wasn't an easy thing to accept, but it made him stronger for the future. He made it a personal promise to himself, to those families, and to those lost men, that he wouldn't fall that low again.

Two years later, and the BSAA still endured the same hardships they always had. Bioterrorism wasn't something that would just go away, he knew that now. In fact, it was Alpha team that was chosen to get sent out to investigate suspicious activity. As it were, rumors had spread across Japan of an organization that sought to replicate the enhanced C-Virus; some had even managed to slip out pictures with coordinates as evidence to force the B.S.A.A. into action. The mission was simple enough; infiltrate the facility from the back and take as many workers as they could in for questioning. However, in the B.S.A.A. things didn't always go according to plan or as smoothly as they'd hope.

A helicopter had dropped the team off a few klicks away from their destination, which left them on foot for the remainder of distance. As it was hinted, the streets had been flooded with J'avo that persistently slowed them down. The soldiers were quick to return fire, a series of bullets swept in each direction to eliminate their surrounding hostiles that attempted to stop them in their tracks. Together in perfect sync as a well trained unit, it hadn't taken long for Alpha team to dispose of the threat and proceed further through the darkened streets toward their goal with the near resounding shout of, "Clear!" From their designated sniper, Joselynne Pritchard. The stars flickered above, a dim glow in comparison to the simple street lights that aligned the sides of the road down each passageway that left much of their surroundings consumed in darkness. It wouldn't be difficult to stage a silent attack, but the soldiers were prepared for it as they worked in unison with their guns pointed in quick once overs of each direction.

With Redfield signalling orders by using multiple waves of the hand, the men and women under his command maintained a strict formation and obeyed as directed the deeper into the city they got. Although delayed by the ambushes the J'avo had been responsible for, their time of arrival at the facility had fortunately not been too far off what they'd expected. The place was locked down tight; electrical pads aligned the side of the door, all requiring some form of identification through fingerprints or DNA scans. Complicated, but not impossible to break through. A simple command was all it took for the team tech expert, Jenesis Mercer, to step through the group of soldiers with a laptop pulled out of her pack. It took a total of thirty seconds to hook it in place and begin a hack into the system.

There was a dead silence in the air, so much that the female technician could almost _hear_ the breathing from her comrades through the pounding of her own heart, still pumped from their trek over. After a few moments, the panels whirred with accepting dings; it was a success. There was an approving nod from her Captain as she settled her things back into her pack and reclaimed her position among the unit. Chris had been the first to enter, gun poised and at the ready with his team close behind to cover their flank. The next room had been empty - nothing but several doors that all led to different pathways. The B.S.A.A. didn't have the pleasantry of getting any accurate schematics of the inside, so there was no telling which direction was the right one, and which could potentially lead them into a well placed trap.

A sudden slam against metal drew the attention of each soldier, all of them looked down their sights with rifles pointed in the direction of the noise. One of the doors - much larger than the others, enough that it could fit on a garage, rattled from the impact of whatever was behind it. Another hit and it shook, the third had a forming dent at it's center. Then the noises came quick and repetitive like an echoing drum roll, bang after bang filled the space of the room and left some of the younger, inexperienced soldiers slightly on edge.

That was when the door opened with dozens of moaning individuals that filed out from behind it the moment it was released. Only, they weren't normal. A dissipating cloud of blue hung in the air around them as they staggered toward the soldiers with open mouths and a clear intent for hostility that flared in their eyes. The soldiers didn't need orders to know that now was the time to open fire.

If they hadn't seen enough proof from the J'avo in the streets, they did now. Someone was using the C-Virus all over again to recreate a nightmare that many wanted to forget.


	2. A Plan Unfolding

**A/N: This particular chapter features some OCs, but don't worry. The only one that plays a significant enough role is one we needed for another antagonist. The story doesn't revolve heavily around them over the characters we all already know.**

* * *

Vince walked the halls of the Neo-Umbrella science facility, a total of four J'avo in military uniforms that bore Tricell logos walked beside him as they passed through winding walkways and valleys of staircases. The soft drum roll of pattered feet resounded as they moved forward together until the man drenched in black slowed to a stop that caused the J'avo to follow instantly. Vince shifted through a variety of buttons on his phone and connected to his employer via the small screen that flashed to life. "I have the virus with me, the facility however is not salvageable."

"Destroy everything." The reply was short as it always was, a voice quiet and stern that laced itself with domineering power. The would-be god had never been anything less than all business and he accepted nothing but the most capable operatives to act as his hands in the area of field work. He demanded perfection, anything less was dealt with harshly and wiped from their pitiful existence.

"And the scientists?" Vince had to be sure. There were no mistakes when working under Albert Wesker, not if he intended to live. The man had dug himself out of a volcano after being shot out of an aircraft, riddled with countless bullets, and even blasted with rockets all of which would have killed a lesser individual, particularly those of mortal standards. But the man behind those dark, ominous shades was far from human, he'd lost all touch with that side of himself many years ago. The glowing suns that flared behind his lenses were proof enough of that statement, a hardened gaze that could pierce fear into even the strongest of men.

"Everything."

Vince nodded. With a series of pressed buttons he ended the call and continued his trek through the facility. He made a motion over his shoulder toward the sauntering feet that trailed along the halls with him. "You, J'avo, go find our missing operative while I address our..." The J'avo nodded and turned around as the one of the garage sized doors fell into their path. A horde of diseased and rotting individuals staggered out with arms outstretched and mouths that hungered for flesh, "Go! We'll take care of this." Everything set into motion with the command.

Dawning his nine-oh-nine, he jumped into the middle of all the infected. With the use of his quickened reflexes from years of experience, he quickly offed two of the creatures with shots to the brain, one after the next, before he elbowed a third that had appeared behind him. He quickly bypassed it to duck down in front of his J'avo, one leg outstretched to the side and away from his body for better balance. "Fire." The command was given and the three J'avo opened fire on what was left, the remaining bodies hit the floor with sickening thuds as they began to melt away into nothingness.

As he walked over the disintegrating bodies, Vince ordered one of his J'avo to go start the self destruct sequence in the command room along with a order to cause a distraction. J'avo weren't always as reliable as agents were for getting things done, but they sufficed due to their maintained intelligence and the fact that they couldn't wander away out of their control. They did make good bodybags for covering their trails when needed, however.

Vince turned to leave the pawns behind him as they scurried about at the given orders. Now, it was time he met the famous Chris Redfield face to face.

* * *

Henry opened fire at the incoming infected until they were all smears on the floor, quickly he ordered Sofia, the group's demolitions expert to check the large garage door on the opposite side of the room. They needed a way out and they needed it now before they got too overwhelmed.

"It's sealed tight." The soft voice had said as the group defended her from the oncoming assault of infected that shrieked and sputtered somewhere behind her.

Henry nodded and turned toward his Captain, "Orders, sir?"

"Looking for something?"

Henry, along with everyone else in the squad turned and aimed their weapons at a man who wore a gas mask and carried a brief case, followed by two of the creatures they fought outside, "HANDS UP NOW, WHO ARE YOU?" The Lieutenant hollered, eyes narrowed as the grip on his weapon tightened. None of the BSAA soldiers had noticed the familiar logo of Tricell stamped at the arms of the J'avo who stood in the background, all eyes instead directed at the unidentified man.

There was a snort, "I'm whoever you want me to be cause I'm sure as hell not saying my real name... So this is him." The man said, Henry could almost sense a smile form under his gas mask. "You may want to leave, Chris Redfield, this facility won't last the hour and it'd be a shame for you to lose another team..." He taunted in an attempt to crawl under the Captain's skin. It almost seemed to work, but time was a delicate thing and already too much had passed. "Anyway, it's time for me to go."

"Oh, no you don't!" Henry said as he was about to pull the trigger on his assault rifle, only to be stopped by the realization that the garage door Sofia had taken a look at earlier was opening. It seemed to be even more packed because zombies eagerly ran out, including a red monstrosity that looked as if all its skin had been taken off.

Chris Redfield liked to think he was still capable of doing the right thing; as a Captain, many heavy decisions rested on his shoulders out in the field. But that didn't stop the mention of his team and the hinted insult directed at the two that had come prior from causing his finger to uncharacteristically twitch against the trigger as his features hardened. He already had to face the reminder through the constant and unrelenting nightmares that hadn't ceased even after the past two years, to hear it again almost caused something inside him to snap - something that had taken too long to replace the first time. He'd thought he was beyond that.

"Don't move!" He'd called after the male that had attempted to start a retreat further back into the facility. Much like his new ATL, Chris had come dangerously close to clamping his finger over the trigger despite their orders to take as many people as possible for questioning. Clearly, the masked individual that had come to meet them face to face held more leverage than simple workers or scientists, and he had a high probability of being more useful to them alive. But that hadn't washed away the temptation to open fire, especially if the place was rigged to blow. If he was being honest, their mission would get cut a hell of a lot shorter than intended and if they didn't hurry, the B.S.A.A. would come up nearly empty handed.

"Fire! Fire!" Henry called out in a rush as he opened up on the infected. Hurriedly, he retook aim at the man walking away towards the door at the end of the room as the reddened, fleshy creature jumped in the air at him. He quickly threw down his weapon and managed to catch it in mid air, with a twist of his weight he moved to flip it onto the floor. He took out his sidearm and shot the creature in the heart then proceeded to retrieve his main weapon as chaos ensued around him. He fell in line with the rest of the group, gun back in his firm grip from the place it had fallen to on the floor as he pulled the trigger to fend off the attacks.

Chris stared down the iron sights of his assault rifle, brown oculars never wavered from their target as he debated on the action, against all better judgement. A sudden shriek had been what finally drew his attention away from the black-clad antagonist and toward his team. One of the newer additions to Alpha, Kavanagh, had been knocked off his feet with a gaping maw of a zombie snapping open and closed inches from his face. Chris acted on reflex; gun redirected at the creature, this time without hesitation to pull the trigger. With a bullet pierced directly through it's brain cavity, the monster slunk forward and dissipated before their eyes.

That was all it took for the agent - whatever he was - to slip away. Chris hadn't realized it until his eyes scanned back through the crowd; nothing left but Alpha and the approaching zombies. "Damn it!" No one had time to follow, not with the swarm of infected on their backs. They'd lost a lead and the clock was ticking; whoever the man was said the building wouldn't last the hour, he had danced around the specifics like any cliche villain would. That meant the countdown was likely much closer to reaching zero than hinted - if he was telling the truth. They'd only just arrived barely a handful of minutes ago, and already the place was ready to crumble and destroy any evidence.

If it was false Intel to keep them side tracked, then whoever was behind the release of B.O.W.s would have time to gather whatever they'd needed and leave with the B.S.A.A. left behind to play the fool. Still, the chance was just as high that they were living on limited time each moment they stayed, and the Captain couldn't take that risk. It was possible for them to have had enough time to get what they needed, then evacuate before it was too late.

* * *

Vince chuckled as his J'avo shut the door behind him and left the B.S.A.A. to their fate. It would buy him the time he needed to get out of their reach and to where he'd needed to be. Quickly he opened his phone and connected to the general channel for all agents in the area, "Hunk, this area's about to go up in smoke, leave now, this includes anyone else in the vicinity."

Not waiting for a reply, he shut his phone and placed it in his pocket as he continued to walk until he stepped into the elevator that would take him to his escape chopper on the roof. As he seated himself in the pilot's chair and flipped the switches until the blades began to spin above him, he opened his phone and connected specifically to his 'partner'. The image flickered to life in front of him and he was met with the sight of a mask perfectly identical to his own, "This facility is gone in twenty minutes, so I'm giving you seven to finish up. I don't want those B.S.A.A. to get up here before you do."

The agent gave a single, quick nod. "On my way." It was the only reply he'd seen before the footage of the other man faded to black.

After he shut his phone, Vince took off his gas mask and put on his glasses so he could clearly see everything he was doing. Vince was diagnosed with ocular degeneration when he was younger, it had gotten worse to the point where he couldn't read things from far away without his glasses. It was a painfully slow process, but his eyes would continue degrading. Thankfully for the moment he could still see, and he'd continue to do his job until he was completely blind. "We will be gods..."

* * *

**A/N: Co-written with Pqfire09, who did all the character development and dialogue for Vince, Henry, and Sofia. He was also the one to write for Albert Wesker. I only edited some of the text to twist it into a more story-esque version of the roleplay.**

**Chris Redfield and the randomly mentioned non-important Kavanagh were written by me.**

**More characters are to make appearances the further the story goes.**


	3. Escape Route

**A/N: Hey guys, a warning in advance I probably should have mentioned sooner. The eventual romances are, quite literally, eventual. Meaning, they won't take place until further down the line, there are some events already into play that will happen before Jill and some of the other characters show up, and even then it will be somewhat slow paced for the sake of the story. I apologize if you were looking for something sooner, but don't worry. This story will get there. :)**

* * *

The body hit the floor with a heavy thud, jolt after jolt caused it to spasm and twitch on the ground. When the gas was released, numerous infected had spread into parts of the facility that hadn't been intended for them to reach. The masked operative took barely more than four casual steps forward, the digits of his right hand clenched and released as a pulse of electricity dangled between them and all across his arm. His left hand slipped down to the straps at his waist to pull loose the sidearm there and raise it, barrel of the gun poised directly down at the burnt infected. It jerked, arm held out to reach toward his leg.

He fired.

The zombie fell limp at the execution, body melted away into the hard concrete of the floor. With a quick movement, the Picador was placed back in it's confines at his hip. There was movement from outside the room, on the other side of the door as it opened. The soldier turned at the motion, eyes narrowed as they peered out from the lenses of the mask, almost perfectly identical to the one Vince wore, and rightly so; it was that man who had bestowed it upon him in the first place. He hated it; how it concealed him, how it kept his unmistakable features out of view and his identity a well hidden secret.

He didn't have the words or control to vocalize his opinions anymore. The minds hidden away behind the bioterrorism organizations had made sure of that; the pulse that would continuously flare at the back of his neck reminded him of the fact non-stop. It had been implanted over a year ago, months after his presumed death at the depths of the ocean. Piers Nivans had always been a man of well trained self-control, yet now he found himself with none at all. It was an unending torment, forced to act and obey. It was a much deeper sense of submission than mankind could ever offer, it was something that shouldn't have had the luxury of existing.

But there he was, trapped in the dead center of it all with no way out. His body worked on autopilot, as if he was little more than an observer inside his own skin. It was a relentless nightmare with no end in sight, and his captors only sought to tighten the leash the more time went by. Piers often wondered if Jill Valentine had felt exactly the same more than five years ago when she had found herself in a similar situation at the hands of a merciless villain that had kept her enslaved just as well. He'd read the report, anyone in the B.S.A.A. had. What hadn't been told on the file about the events in Africa had been gossiped to every ear in HQ.

Footsteps.

A single J'avo passed through the recently opened door frame, the Tricell logo had become uncomfortably familiar over time. Vince must have sent it to come retrieve him.

Sure enough, it hadn't been barely more than a few seconds after that his phone went off. He pulled it free and flipped it open, shielded eyes rested on the screen as Vince informed him of the situation. He felt the movement of his body as it worked on it's own with a single, quick nod across the link. "On my way," Was the simple reply, words that were formed for him whether he wanted it or not. When the link was cut, the phone was put away as he made a move to unkindly brush past the J'avo who followed behind as instructed.

They made way down the winding halls, until the roar of hungry infected sounded behind them and zombies flooded into the walkway by the dozens. The J'avo made a move to fire it's weapon, but a kick to it's kneecap that shattered the bone sent him to the floor. Piers gave a last shove to the multi-eyed mutation that caused it to sprawl forward into the awaiting arms of the horde. Hungry and mindless, they started to snap their jaws around the flesh of the J'avo, and while it kept them distracted, the ace sniper turned and continued on his way to the roof. Echoes wafted behind him of sickening crunching noises, followed by the smack of lips as they chowed down on their meal. The J'avo, not immune to the effects of pain, released screams that nearly overlapped the other sounds and weeded them out.

Piers tapped at the controls of the elevator as the doors closed, concealing the infected from sight. Upon arrival at the top, he didn't hesitate to make way toward the already prepared helicopter and silently climbed in.

* * *

To the far side of the room, Pritchard fended off multiple attacks from the approaching horde with an eye through her scope and her back to the wall. Kavanagh had retreated after the assault on his well being, now closer to the back alongside the sniper to help keep her defended. The room wasn't necessarily big enough to require use of a scope, but the distance was enough that one was still useful in trained hands. Further behind the squad of firing soldiers, Jenesis had managed to slink against the wall near a control panel with her laptop hooked into it. Fingers darted wildly across the keys with gray eyes that matched the same speed, reading through line after line as she attempted to gather any useful data during whatever short amount of time they had left.

A fallen zombie dropped inches from her feet and made her visibly jump, out of reflex her eyes raised from the screen to land on one of her fellow B.S.A.A. soldiers. She huffed, clearly annoyed as he offered an apologetic shrug and returned to defending her as she reverted her attention back to her hack of their systems. It wasn't long until there was a ding and a notification across the screen; it'd worked. Several files and images came to life under her gaze that widened slightly - it seemed as though the mission hadn't been for nothing, after all. Unhooking her devices, she shimmied away from the wall and through the soldiers, everything placed safely back into her pack that stayed looped across her back.

"Captain! I managed to hack into their systems, whoever that was hadn't been lying, we have less than ten minutes to evac out of here before the place collapses down around our ears! It's too late to go after him!" She yelled as she pulled free her weapon and provided cover fire of her own to assist. The Captain seemed to hesitate, he half expected it to be a rouse and the B.S.A.A. had hardly any time to investigate. "Did you find anything useful in those files?" Jenesis had said she'd hacked into the system - there had to be something there unless they wiped it clean. They needed something - anything to go on that didn't leave them with empty palms.

"Yes, sir! We won't need him if we can get out of here. I have data on previous calls and delivery charts, they've been making shipments all over the place but I have coordinates. We've got them!" Jenesis gave a motion over her shoulder toward her pack. As long as they got clear, they could relay the Intel to HQ. The Captain nodded in approval, his attention now on the rest of his team. "Eliminate all hostiles and fall back! If this place blows, I don't want anyone here when it happens!" The given order was hollered above the remaining sound of gunfire. There wasn't a way for them to retreat before ending the threat, given how enclosed the space was the team would have only been at more risk if they gave away their ground.

The threat however, had died down to a handful of cannibalistic monstrosities that took hardly a minute to finish off. Just like that, the moment another, "Clear!" echoed from one of the soldiers, they all climbed to their feet and filed back out the door as ordered. Multiple footsteps padded across the cement as they scurried out of range with heads ducked as they took cover behind a building just as the facility blew. Moments after the blast ceased, one by one the soldiers moved to observe the fiery remains that were little more than rubble in the distance.

A sound of a chopper overhead caught the attention of a few; it hadn't belonged to the B.S.A.A. so it had to have been the masked individual who had sought to delay them from gaining any Intel. The helicopter had hovered momentarily, long enough for the two operatives to spot the B.S.A.A. soldiers from their aerial view and Piers took in the sight. So it was true, it _had_ been Alpha that was sent in. Of course it would be, they were the front line unit and most capable.

Piers wasn't as well informed on whatever plans the bioterrorists had in mind, it wasn't necessary to fill in someone who was quite literally a walking toy soldier that could be twisted around and forced to follow any given command. What he knew was more commonly than not things that he'd simply overheard. Whatever they had planned, Chris Redfield was caught directly in the middle of it.

_Don't let them trick you, Captain._

It was the last clear thought he had as they drifted away from the wreckage.

It hadn't taken much more than a few minutes for the helicopter to disappear out of sight and out of reach, the BSAA unit didn't have a way of tracking it, but if Jenesis was right about the data... Captain Redfield turned on his heel. Before he had a chance to open his mouth, their radios buzzed to life. "Alpha, this is HQ. We have information that suggests the facility was destroyed, what's your status?"

Chris raised a hand to his earpiece, "HQ, Alpha here. Intel was right, the facility's gone but we all made it out in time."

"Were you able to seize any data on the source behind the terrorist assault?"

"We met an unidentified agent while inside the facility, but we weren't able to catch him for questioning." He made a motion toward the technician with a signal of the hand. Jenesis nodded and tugged free her equipment from the pack and pulled up the data she'd been able to scavenge. "One of my soldiers were able to get a hold of some of their files, we may have a location on the next bioterrorism movement." He crouched down next to the younger woman as her fingers flew across the keyboard, moments later the Intel had been directed back to HQ. There was a long pause before anymore voices sounded across the comm, the seconds expanded into elongated minutes as the group waited on orders for how to proceed.

The radio finally crackled to life, "Alpha Team, your mission just changed. The evac has been cancelled, the helicopter we're sending will take you to the coordinates from those files. You'll be dropped off near a dock, these reports say that a ship carrying a delivery of bio-organic weaponry will arrive by morning tomorrow. The BSAA has already made the correct reservations in a hotel not far out of the way, you can stay there until it docks. We can't waste time with this, get in there and see what you can do." There was the briefest pause, "And Alpha... Be careful. If the Intel is correct, there's a chance you may be dealing with the remnants of Neo-Umbrella."

The Captain felt his jaw tense at the news. "Copy that," The comms faded into a heavy silence thereafter.

Neo-Umbrella. They had caused enough trouble already.

Within the hour, the helicopter had arrived to pick them up and make way toward their new destination.


	4. Come Back, Don't Leave

**A/N: So, I wasn't aware of it until it was pointed out to me (generally I don't read many hetero fics, even if I write them) that apparently, someone had something similar to a specific part in this chapter in their fic as well. Normally I try to keep some semblance of originality if possible, so I apologize but by the time we realized this, Pqfire09 and I already referenced it too many times in our RP to edit events. D: Again, apologies, but it's only a minor detail compared to the rest of the story.**

* * *

Jake Muller had been in and out of reach for the span of the last two years, he roamed around multiple places across the globe to do exactly the _opposite_ of anything he could have imagined back in his time as a well paid mercenary. Bioterrorism, J'avo, they seemed to be reoccurring events. But it hadn't been until recently that he'd been contacted out of the blue by Sherry. After everything that happened in Edonia, then six months after in China, the two of them had parted ways with very limited contact. The message he'd received from her more recently had practically been a plea for help, one he couldn't decline.

She wasn't too descriptive with details, the mission itself was sketchy. Apparently, they'd sent her in to help retrieve files that some remnants of Neo-Umbrella had stashed away about the C-Virus, something that could quite potentially lead to an actual cure. She'd explained before how the antibodies they'd gotten from his blood were used to create Anti-C, a drug made to prevent someone from being infected with the virus. The files they were after held a possibility of giving them more, of allowing them to create something to help revert those poor souls back to their human state.

Sherry had been insistent at first, and he'd obliged, but before he'd actually been able to arrive she had sent another message. This time, she was notifying him that she'd been spotted and was in trouble. What was originally meant to be little more than him giving her a hand had turned much more serious and into something he couldn't back down from. Sherry had gone so far as to send the exact coordinates to where she was, and Jake had stopped at nothing to get there. It was a small building, more of an outpost than anything according to the petite blonde. He didn't think like he should have, he just acted.

The guards didn't stand a chance as he plowed through them with inhuman strengths all in thanks to the experiments of one Carla Radames. More J'avo, only it wasn't a Neo-Umbrella stamp posted on their arms. It was a patch for Tricell, something he'd barely caught onto as the bodies had spontaneously combust as they were overcome by the extent of damage he'd delivered with little more than his bare fists. He searched from room to room, until he stumbled upon one with high tech controls. Although impatient in his search, he stepped inside the moment he caught screens as they flickered through different camera angles on the other side of the room. Sharp blue eyes shifted between each one with a pause as they settled on a familiar form backed into a corner on one of the screens.

Not fully sure of what he was doing, he flipped a few of the switches and with a little luck, more of the screens shifted to different angles of the scene. There was a stamp at the bottom of the screen - it was the same name he was sure he'd seen on the building near the end of the street. It wasn't that far, if Sherry was there... He paused his train of thought as another camera with an outside view zoomed in on a batch of soldiers. It didn't take long for him to recognize them as B.S.A.A. operatives; of course he'd noticed that it was none other than the renowned Chris Redfield who had been at their front. _Always on a mission to try and save the day._ He snorted with a slight narrow to his gaze.

What the hell were they even there for? Sherry had told him she was working alone. "Damn B.S.A.A. always stickin' their jarheads where they'll only cause trouble." The odd thing was, they looked as though they'd been retreating. Why couldn't they have offered any help to Sherry? Jake's eyes moved back to blonde on screen; she was still alive, and she hadn't looked too roughed up on the outside, but he reckoned a lot of that was all in thanks to her super girl trait. The exhausted, spent look on her innocent features however had made something in his stomach churn. The sound of stretched leather softly lifted into the air as his hands closed into fists and made a quick turn to start on his way. He couldn't leave her like that.

He'd deal with those damn J'avo and whoever the hell else was behind them for whatever they put Sherry through.

Before he even had a chance to escape through the door way, he heard it. An explosion that echoed in an ear shattering volume and shook the buildings around it. He glanced back toward the screen; the images of Sherry had gone dark, blurred over with static as the camera went offline. Other sights from within the building had shut off simultaneously, the few that remained were on the outside - and they were what revealed the state of the building, which was little more than rubble. It was at that moment he felt something curl inside of him like a tendril around his heart and squeeze. It stopped beating. He stopped breathing.

"SHERRY!"

The sound of his own voice carried back to him as he found himself unable to look away from the screen. Sherry couldn't - no, she was a super girl, right? Invincible. Untouchable.

He was lying to himself, even if he refused to admit it.

"Sherry..." He almost didn't recognize the sound when he repeated her name, something caught at the back of his throat. No, not like that. He found himself rooted on the spot, unsure what to do, what to think. It was a new feeling he'd never experienced before, something that went beyond even what he'd felt for his mother on her death bed, the only woman he'd had the heart to care for.

But now there was Sherry. And Sherry was gone.

A glimpse of movement from one of the few remaining camera views revealed the B.S.A.A. squad. They were so... Calm, so _fine_ with the situation, some of them even seemed satisfied. Bioterrorism, J'avo, the viruses. If there had been anything in that place that could have posed as a threat, they wouldn't hesitate to annihilate the building, it had been done before hadn't it?

The B.S.A.A. were responsible for the explosion. For Sherry. Realization washed over him - Chris. Chris had been responsible for the death of his father, and now there he was again standing proud with his men in front of the same blast Sherry had been trapped inside. Now it wasn't just one thing that the Captain of the S.O.U. had taken from him. The man had cost him Sherry, the one person who managed to help him turn away from the life he'd built around himself for the better. To say it was personal was an understatement, it already had been. Now... Now, Jake wanted bloodshed for something he could never get back.

With a last glance toward the fuzzy screens where the blonde had been moments ago, Jake turned on his heel with the decision made and set in stone.

_I'm sorry, Sherry._

He didn't voice the words. He wasn't sure he could.


End file.
